I would be a Bold Lion before the week was out. And that is why I am surly and glum."
"Poor Glawen! But we need not worry today. How far is Ocean Island?"
"Not far. We'll sight it almost anytime ... In fact, see that gray smudge on the horizon? That's Ocean Island."
The sloop sailed on: up the blue slopes, down the wide wet swales. Ocean Island, the tip of a sea mountain, took on definite form: a low cone with a shattered irregular tip a mile in circumference, with coconut palms fringing the shore and a forest of native trees ranging up the slopes of the central crag.
Glawen anchored in a sheltered cove, a hundred feet off a beach of white sand. He jumped overboard into four feet of water.
"Come," he told Wayness.
"I'll carry you ashore."
Wayness hesitated, then put her arms around his neck. He caught her under the knees, carried her to the beach, then returned to the boat for the lunch basket.
In the shade of a massive clarensia tree Glawen built a fire over which they grilled skewers of meat, which were then dipped into pepper sauce, caught in a slice of bread and devoured, along with a bottle of mild white Clattuc wine.
The two leaned back against the tree and looked along the curving beach, where coconut fronds moved in the breeze, and water eased up and down the sand. Glawen sighed.
"Here there are no Bold Lions. There they are waiting for me. It seems foolish to go back. So why go back when we could live in utter tranquillity here, at peace with the elements? There is much to be said for the idea."
"I'm not so sure," said Wayness demurely.
"There isn't any more lunch. What would we eat?"
"The bounty of nature. Fish, edible roots, seaweed, coconuts, rats and land crab. It is the ultimate dream of a million romantic poets."
"True, except for the cuisine, which might become tiresome, night after night either rat or fish for supper. By the same reasoning, you might well become bored with me after ten or twenty years--especially if we ran out of soap."
"Soap is no problem. We can make it out of coconut oil and ashes," said Glawen.
"In that case there is only a single obstacle: my mother.
She is quite conventional. A romantic sojourn on Ocean Island--or any other island, for that matter--would interfere with her plans for my marriage."
"Your marriage!" Glawen looked at her in astonishment.
"You'i too young to be married!"
"Don't get excited, Glawen. Nothing is definite. My mother simpi is thinking ahead. This person thinks he might like to marry me,;
least so he's told my mother. He has a private fortune and is al read influential at Stroma. My mother thinks it would be an exceller match, even though he is totally LPF in all his views."
"Hmmf. And what do you think of all this?"
"I haven't given it much thought."
Glawen spoke casually.
"And this LPFer--what's his name?"
"Julian Bohost. He was on Earth while we were there, and I sa' quite a bit of him. He's rather strong-minded and earnest, and Moth is probably quite right: Julian would surely prefer that his bride ha not lived ten or twenty years during her youth on Ocean Island wit another gentleman."
"Do you like him?"
Again Wayness laughed.
"Aren't I allowed any secrets whatever?"
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't ask such things." Glawen rose to his fe and looked up at the sun.
"Anyway it's time the romantic idyll was ending for today. The breeze has backed around into the east whic is good news, but it has a tendency to slack off in the late aftemool and it's probably a good time to be leaving."
Glawen carried the lunch basket to the boat. He turned to fin Wayness at the water's edge preparing to wade to the boat. He callec "I'll carry you, if you will wait."
Wayness made an airy gesture.
"I don't mind getting my legs wet. Nevertheless she waited until Glawen returned and made no prote! when he lifted her.
Halfway to the boat Glawen halted. Their faces were close togethci Wayness asked in a husky whisper: "Am I too heavy?
Are you going to drop me into the water?"
Glawen sighed.
"No ... I see no real reason to do so."
He carried her to the boat and climbed aboard himself. While Glawe stowed the lunch basket and made ready for departure, Wayness Si on the coach roof combing her hair through her fingers and watchin him with an enigmatic expression. She jumped up to help him hoii the sails and raise the anchor;
